Description/Abstract

Latino adults in the United States experience a greater burden of disability than non-Latino White adults. This brief summarizes findings from a study using data from the 2000-2016 American Community Surveys (ACS) linked to annual state policy data (1998-2014) on Latino adults ages 45-85 across 25 U.S. states (N=1,183,438). The authors describe how state labor policies (i.e., disability insurance, minimum wage protections, paid sick leave, unemployment compensation) predict disability among Latino adults. The authors find that disability rates among Latino adults are lower in states with more liberal labor policy contexts. Liberal state policies appear protective for both U.S.-born and foreign-born Latinos, but are especially so for U.S.-born Latinos, who have higher disability rates to begin with. Among foreign-born Latinos, the average disability rate was 19.9% in states with the most conservative labor policies compared to 16.3% in states with the most liberal labor policies. Among U.S.-born Latinos, the average disability rate was 26.2% in conservative policy states compared to 20% in liberal policy states.

Document Type

Research Brief

Keywords

State labor policies, Latino adults, disability

Disciplines

Disability Studies | Public Policy | Race and Ethnicity | Sociology

Date

3-3-2026

Language

English

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Shannon Monnat and Alyssa Kirk for edits and feedback on previous versions of this brief. This research was funded by the National Institute on Aging P30AG066583. The views expressed in this brief are not necessarily those of the National Institute on Aging.

Funder(s)

National Institute on Aging

Funding ID

P30AG066583

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Download

Share

COinS